olive bly (Tangata Tiriti, Pākehā) is an outer-disciplinary artist of european descent from Aotearoa (New Zealand), currently based in Naarm (Melbourne, so-called “Australia”).
Her work traverses a variety of mediums, finding synaesthetic links between all kinds of reference points. She adopts playful creative philosophies which blend the naive with the theoretic, underpinned by thematic cyclicality.
Drawing on her backgrounds in music, philosophy, painting, and poetry, she is always improvising across fields.
Her visual art has been exhibited at MEANWHILE & Uindō95 in Te Whanganui a Tara, Aotearoa, and recently at several galleries in & around Naarm. In June 2026 she was selected as a finalist for the fortyfivedownstairs Emerging Artist Award.
Her poetry has been published by various literary magazines in Aotearoa (including a fine line, bad apple, and Nine Lives), and she has written work forthcoming in several international publications. Her debut poetry collection, chrysalis (d[i̶]s)section, was published in August 2025 with 5ever books.
In 2025, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (majoring in Philosophy) from Te Herenga Waka (Victoria University of Wellington). During her degree, she studied jazz performance (in piano) at Te Kōki (New Zealand School of Music).
Over the last year, her visual work has been focused on developing processes that are curious and passionate about form and colour. She sees her works as diagrams: diagrams which point primarily to multiplicity of intention and interpretation. Questioning our understanding of strict dichotomies, her works set out to walk tightropes of meaning, revelling in making connections between things which are seemingly contradictory. This approach is intimately connected to real-world dynamics: abstraction is a response to the concrete, and vice versa. She is particularly interested in using recycled, found, and secondhand materials in order to explore modes of creation which promote sustainability: imagining new futures which expand the horizons of the (im)possible.
Similarly, her prose and poetry writing looks for ways to (re)present the english language. Often drawing influence from concrete and language poetry, she aims to write language as a medium which questions politics of ownership, binaristic thinking, & other hegemonic (linguistic) structures.
She is enthusiastic about finding pathways through art & life which draw people together. More than paintings in a white box or words on a blank page, art-making & sharing are mediums through which we can draw together & collectivise. She aims to collaborate with others in building hope, finding ways to address/combat the most pressing issues facing the planet.
